


Smells Like Home

by bella8876



Series: 30 days of Sterek drabbles [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Laura Hale Feels, M/M, Pack Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 07:24:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bella8876/pseuds/bella8876
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Derek takes the pack on a trip to tour the NYU campus, he doesn't expect to catch a familiar scent, one he'd almost forgotten, one that smelled like home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smells Like Home

**Author's Note:**

> Day Five of my 30 Days of Sterek challenge.
> 
> Photo Prompt credit: [abstraire.tumblr.com](http://abstraire.tumblr.com/post/39484256515/gail-albert-halaban-out-my-window)

Derek had almost forgotten how noxiously potent New York was. Between all the people living and working on top of each other, the truly excessive amount of restaurants and food carts, combined with a horrifying lack of nature south of 59th street, every block was a veritable minefield of overwhelming odors. 

It had taken months to get used to it when he and Laura had first moved there. Even after they been there a few years, there were times when the two of them would just take a whole weekend off, lock themselves in the apartment and shove towels under every door and around every window until the whole place smelled of nothing but Laura and him and _pack_. 

Even with everything that had gone wrong upon his return to Beacon Hills Derek was just happy that he could finally breathe again.

He’d been ok when they got there two days ago. They’d gone from the airport to the cab to the hotel and everyone had been too tired from the long flight to venture out into the city. The campus tour the day before hadn’t been too bad either, but that probably had to do with how close the campus was to Washington Square Park. But now, walking through the East Village on the way to the Sushi place Lydia had insisted on, Derek was having a hard time taking a deep breath. 

Allison and Scott were huddled together whispering about something Derek was positive he didn’t want to hear. Danny, Lydia, and Jackson were arguing the pros and cons of going out on their last night in the city versus the 9 am flight they had the next morning. Stiles was walking backwards, waving his hands around wildly as he told Boyd and Isaac about the first editions he’s seen in the Folklore section of the campus library. Isaac caught Boyd’s eye and they shared a secret smile, still amused after 3 years by how excited Stiles gets over smelly old books. 

Derek was trying to filter out as many unnecessary scents as he could. He couldn’t block them all out because big cities had way too many Omegas for him to let his guard completely down and even though they were right in front of him, he liked being able to smell his pack. He was sifting through all the warring food smells to get to what was underneath when he was hit but an aroma so achingly familiar he stopped in his tracks. 

Derek closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Underneath the smell of the bakery down the block, the dumpling place across the street, and the hot dog vendor on the corner, underneath the week old garbage, the urine and the sweat, was the sweet and spicy tang of borscht. It smelled like home.

Derek looked around him, he’d been concentrating so much on blocking out scents he hadn’t been paying attention to where they were. “No way.” He mumbled, taking in the store fronts and restaurants. They were all different but the buildings, they were still the same. He’s not surprised he didn’t recognize it at first. The East Village had changed a lot in 10 years. When he’d lived here there had been drug dealers and prostitutes who hung out at the liquor stores and dive bars. Now there were moms pushing fancy strollers and hipster couples buying produce from organic grocers. 

Derek ducked down a side street and crossed into an alley way, following his nose and a long forgotten memory which lead him to the back of an apartment building. Derek took in another deep breath and smiled slightly as he exhaled. Definitely borscht. 

It wasn’t just any old borscht though. Derek knew this borscht. Derek had eaten this borscht for almost wo straight weeks when they’d first gotten here. Before the insurance money had come through, all Laura and Derek had to live on was whatever had been in their parent’s bank account at the time of the fire, which wasn’t a lot. So when they’d gotten to New York they rented the only place they could afford; a tenth floor walkup in Alphabet City, right over a little old Ukranian lady, Ms Oliynyk. 

The day they moved in she’d come up to introduce herself, and when she’d found out it was just the two of them and seen their half empty fridge, and even emptier pantry, she’d gone down to her apartment and come back five minutes later carrying a huge steaming pot of borscht, set it on the rickety card table they’d set up in the kitchen and said, “You eat.” So they did. 

She’d shown up every day after that at 6 o’clock exactly with food. Sometimes she had meat or fish or sausages, there were always potatoes, but mostly it was borscht. It had been nice to have someone to take care of them again, to have someone to tell them what to do, even if it was just something small like what and when to eat. They hadn’t stayed there very long, only three or four months before the money came through and Laura moved them to a better neighborhood. He hadn’t eaten borscht since. 

He couldn’t believe she was still here. He could hardly believe she was still alive. He could definitely believe she was still cooking borscht. There was a part of him that was tempted to knock on the door of 9D and see if she remembered him. But when he found her window, the apartment was dark and it was apparent no one was home. 

“Derek?” Stiles asked coming up beside him. “You kind of just walked off. Is everything ok?” 

“I’m fine, I just--” Derek swallowed and turned to him. “I lived here, _Laura_ and I lived here for a little while when we first got to the city. I’d almost forgotten.” 

“Yeah?” Stiles smiled over at him then looked up at the building. 

“Yeah,” Derek said. It had taken a while but it didn’t hurt anymore to talk about his families. He told the pack stories all the time about his parents, about growing up in a werewolf family. But for some reason he could never really bring himself to talk about Laura, especially the Laura after the fire. It had just been the two of them for so long it was hard, even after her death, to share Laura with anyone else. 

Except for Stiles, it had always been easy for him to talk about Laura with Stiles. Maybe because Stiles could understand, would know what it was like, to want to hoard memories of someone, to keep them to yourself because they were just too special. 

It was easy to tell Stiles the story of Ms. Oliynyk. To tell him about the way the pipes would freeze up in the middle of the night and how it sounded like an angry pterodactyl was in the walls. To tell him about the first time Laura saw a roach and how she’d screamed for almost a solid five minutes. And Stiles just listened. He always listened whenever Derek talked like this. 

“Which one was yours,” Stiles asked. 

  
Derek pointed to the 10th floor window and Stiles followed his finger. The blinds were up and all the lights were on giving them an unimpeded view of the brunette when she walked into the room. Derek’s breath caught in his throat as she moved around the kitchen, pulling things out of cabinets and dropping them by the stove. 

It was ridiculous. She didn’t even look like Laura. She was a little bit too tall, a little bit too skinny, and when he closed his eyes and concentrated, the smell was all wrong. Too sweet, too flowery, too…artificial. But he couldn’t help the memory it evoked. 

He felt Stiles’s hand slip into his and squeeze and Derek knew he understood. Stiles had told him once that even now, after almost 10 years, anytime he saw a woman with long red hair from behind, his brain short circuited for a split second, convinced it was his mom. 

“Laura tried to cook once,” Derek said. “She was tired of Borscht, tired of taking advantage of Ms. Oliynyk. She went out and bought a roast. She spent all day peeling potatoes and carrots and insisted we would have a proper Sunday dinner. Just like mom used to make. Only the oven apparently ran hot. Really hot. The whole thing was burnt to a crisp on the outside and absolutely raw on the inside. She just stood there and stared at it for a while. I thought she was gonna cry. But she laughed. She was laughing so hard I started to laugh. I didn’t even know what she was laughing at, I didn’t know what I was laughing at but we were laughing. It was the first time since the fire that either of us had been able to. It was nice.” 

Stiles squeezed his hand and Derek let out a deep breath and turned away from the window. Away from the brunette who wasn’t Laura making a dinner that was sure to come out much better than theirs had. 

“She took me out for pizza at this hole in the wall place a few blocks away. We didn’t have a lot of disposable income then so we never really ate out and she’d spent a lot on the roast but she said she didn’t care. She said we’d been there for two weeks and hadn’t had authentic New York City pizza yet and that was simply unacceptable.” Derek smiled. “We ate two large pizza’s between the two of us, randomly bursting into laughter anytime we caught each other’s eye. It was the best pizza I’ve ever had.” 

“Come on,” Stiles tugged on his hand and they headed down the alleyway and back toward the street. Stiles pulled out his phone and dialed a number, keeping a firm grip on Derek’s hand as they walked. “Hey Lydia change of plans, we’re having pizza for dinner.” Derek turned to him, his chest tightening just this side of painful. “Except, you’re the only one who actually _wants_ to eat Sushi you know that right?” Stiles narrowed his eyes. “Whatever you don’t scare me anymore,” Derek heard the skip in his heart beat and let out a small laugh at the lie. “Look, there’s no way I’m going home without having authentic New York City pizza.” Stiles turned to Derek, a huge smile on his face. “That is simply unacceptable. I’ll text you when I know where.” Stiles hung up before Lydia could argue anymore and Derek shook his head.  
  
“She’s gonna kill you,” Derek pointed out. 

“I’ll take her out for Sushi when we get back home,” Stiles shrugged. “Maybe let her tell me what to wear for a week or two. She’ll get over it.” Stiles looked around the street. “You think that place is still open?” 

“Might be,” Derek shrugged and tightened his grip as he turned down the block he remembered it being on. 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The restaurant had been turned into a coffee shop/book store and they’d had to find another pizzeria, not that New York was lacking in those. The pizza wasn’t as good as the one he’d shared with Laura that night but it was still good. Derek didn’t even mind that he had to eat with his left hand because Stiles didn’t let go of his right the whole night. 

“So NYU?” Derek asked Stiles on the walk back to the hotel, their still intertwined hands swinging slightly between them. 

“The campus was nice,” Stiles said. “You know how I feel about the library.” Derek rolled his eyes. “But I don’t think city living is for me.” 

“No?” Derek asked. He’d been trying to be supportive, letting the pack know that wherever they chose to go to college, he’d figure something out. But the idea of any of them so far away, of _Stiles_ so far away had him on edge for the past couple of months. 

“Nah,” Stiles shook his head. “Too many people, everyone’s on top of everyone else and it just…it doesn’t feel like home here.” 

Derek couldn’t help the relieved smile that spread across his face. “So what are you thinking then?” 

Stiles took a breath and actually thought it over before speaking, something that Derek noticed he’d been doing a lot more lately. “Berkley’s in the top spot right now. I liked the campus, I like the town. I really like their Folklore undergrad program. Plus it’s close enough that I can come home on breaks, maybe even weekends every now and then which means I won’t be so worried about my dad. Or you.” 

“You’d be worried about me?” Derek asked. 

“I always worry about you,” Stiles said softly and Derek squeezed his hand. 

“Isaac was thinking about Berkley.” 

“I know. We talked about rooming together,” Stiles said. “I think Scott’s jealous. He’s convinced that we’re gonna become best friends and forget all about him. I told him it was more likely we’d kill each other before the end of the first semester.” 

“I think it’ll be good. For both of you,” Derek offered. “It’ll make it easier for Isaac, being away, if he’s living with someone who smells like pack.” 

“I smell like pack?” Stiles raised an eyebrow and Derek stopped walking, tugging Stiles’s arm until he stopped too. Stiles just stared as Derek stepped closer and dipped his head into to Stiles’s neck before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. Derek dragged his nose up from Stiles’s collarbone, not stopping until he got to a spot right behind Stiles’s ear. 

Derek could feel the other boys pulse pounding against his lips and he smiled, taking one more deep breath before pulling away, slowly, letting his cheek rub against Stiles’s as he did. “You smell like home.” 

**Author's Note:**

> So I've got a [Tumblr](http://www.bella8876.tumblr.com/)


End file.
